For a party that in 2004 defined the comprehensive law against gender violence as a “PSOE marketing operation”, which in 2010 filed an unconstitutionality appeal against the abortion law, and which in March 2022 reached a government pact with Vox that included diluting violence against women in “the fight against intrafamily violence” (the term used by the far right to deny specific violence against women) it is difficult, almost impossible, to defend feminist frameworks without falling into contradictions. That is why in the PP they have seen a window of opportunity with the law of only yes is yes: the popular want to use in their favor the noise and social alarm that has been generated by the reduction of some sentences for sexual offenders so that in Genoa it is repeated, like a mantra, that “we are facing the least feminist government in history “.
The PP wants to make the most of this controversy during the campaign to wrest the female vote from the PSOE, a decisive fishing ground for voters for the Socialists.
This explains why the PP promotes, through Nuevas Generaciones (NNGG), demonstrations against the law of only yes is yes. Those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo went from saying that the political parties should not lead the protests against the Government and that civil society should take the lead – it was their way of justifying the low profile with which they attended the demonstration against Pedro Sánchez called by ultra- associations to promote rallies throughout the country against the Ministry of Equality.
This Wednesday they did it in Madrid, in front of the official building of the ministry headed by Irene Montero, and barely managed to gather fifty people, including Carmen Navarro, the party’s deputy secretary for Social Policy. They held a banner with a resounding message to Irene Montero: “Resign yes or yes.” Feijóo was not there. The entire offensive of the PP against the law is focused on the trickle of reductions in sentences, something that the Government has called “undesired effects” and that it is currently studying – in a tug of war between the PSOE and United We Can – how to correct.
Cover the lack of parity in its starting lineup
And with the horizon of covering the party as a parity between men and women, the PP will give prominence to women in the pre-election conclave that will be held this weekend in Valencia. Practically the entire party has gathered on February 4 and 5 at the XXVI Popular Intermunicipal Union and the campaign team, led by Elías Bendodo, has dedicated a space to pay homage to the former PP women mayors who “made history “in 1995, they say from Genoa, a year before the first Government of José María Aznar. Aznar and Mariano Rajoy will also be in Valencia.
This tribute that the party will pay them will be a video in which Rita Barberá (former mayor of Valencia), Teófila Martínez (former mayor of Cádiz), Luisa Fernanda Rudí (former mayor of Zaragoza) and Celia Villalobos (former mayor of Málaga) will appear.
Then will come the ‘photo’ of Feijóo with his candidates. The president of the PP will present a discussion table under the slogan ‘Change in municipalism came from the hands of our mayors’, which will be moderated by Rudí and in which the candidate for mayor of Vitoria, Ainhoa Domaica, the candidate for Zaragoza City Council will participate , Natalia Chueca and the mayoress of Santander, Gema Igual. Feijóo’s team wants this weekend’s image to be different from the one that came out of the campaign start ceremony three weeks ago in Zaragoza.
In the presentation of the regional candidates of the PP for the 28M the lack of parity was evident. Only four of the seventeen territorial leaders of the PP are women: Isabel Díaz Ayuso in Madrid, Marga Prohens in the Balearic Islands, María José Sáenz de Buruaga in Cantabria and María Guardiola in Extremadura.
Critical voices then surfaced within the party that reproached Feijóo for the fact that his starting squad is entirely male. The truth is that of the seven main positions in Genoa, only two are women, Cuca Gamarra and Carmen Navarro. Regarding the media presence, Gamarra is the only weighty female voice.
